A lull in the pre-Christmas frenzy found me one night in Oxford, between sound check and carol concert, in the stony, silent dignity of a clerical study at Christ Church Cathedral. In such circumstances dabbing at an iPhone feels less appropriate than sidling towards the bookshelf, and there I

The law is not designed for comfort. Nobody involved in a court case, however innocently or marginally, expects total ease. From time to time, however, an outside observer can wonder whether the collateral damage from court proceedings is not getting too feral. This thought was focused the other

Fifty years on, with the men long gone and the girls pensionable, the Profumo affair refuses to lie down. One play is running based on Christine Keeler’s memoirs and this week Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Stephen Ward opens. Indeed Ward, the society osteopath who introduced Keeler and Mandy

None of it has been too much. Not the anxiety, the reporting of decline, the cloud of white doves, the singing grief of half a continent and much of the world. He deserved it all. But for me, honouring Nelson Mandela as fighter, prisoner and political leader will always come second to revering him

Privilege is a hot topic. You can “check your privilege” on websites which downgrade you if you are lucky enough to tick boxes for female, poor, fat, short, uneducated, or sexual or ethnic minority. I say “lucky” because nobody wants to be called privileged since it became a synonym for “selfish

With dismal political inevitability, the Attorney-General, Dominic Grieve, has had to apologise for a thoughtful, optimistic interview. In it he made useful observations about Europe and the importance of defined human rights (“If you give rights to people you dislike, it is actually a sign of your

Nannies see a lot. Transplanted from a home town or distant land, they penetrate the heart of different family lives: glamorous or baffling, enviable or dysfunctional. No wonder famous employers enforce confidentiality contracts. For a few weeks once we had a cheerful Norlander whose best friend

With typical good sense, Emma Thompson has said that she wrote a handbook on sex and emotion for her 13-year-old daughter. Any parent recognises the sterling wisdom of putting it in writing rather than uttering panicky interdictions or forcing unwelcome “little talks” on a squirming teenager. But

Hell hath no fury like a TV presenter deprived of lens and limelight. Dignity is rarely the hallmark. John McCririck, sacked from Channel 4 racing at 73 after a damn good innings deploying what the tribunal called his “pantomime” persona and “self-described bigotry”, sues them for millions pleading

Journalism costs money. News is expensive. Hell, even comment involves hard work. Crafted art and entertainment don’t come free either, and won’t as long as their makers need food and shelter. We are living through a technology-driven hiccup in which this obvious truth is blurred, as an online